My name is Rick Chin and I head up the software team at Desktop Metal and I'm
gonna give you an overview of our cloud-based software called Fabricate™,
which is used to pre-process your 3D CAD models and then walk that data through
the process between the printer, debinder and furnace. So I'm running Fabricate™
right now within my Chrome browser and I'm on the home page, what we call the
dashboard. Here, if I currently had a job running I would see it front and center
in this main part of the screen where I'd see both the job, it's progress and
information on the particular device that it's running on. Over on the
right-hand side of the screen are all the jobs that are ready to go or to be sent
to the next step in the process. So I've pre-processed a 3D model and it's
ready for printing, I'll see the listed here like I see these with this green
icon. If a job has been printed and it's not ready for debinding, again I'll see
it listed here but with a blue icon to represent debinding. I could just select
on the items here with their checkboxes and then create job to send it off to
the next device in the process. But everything begins over here on the left
hand side of the screen well basically select a model that we
want to begin the printing process for. Now in addition to selecting STL files, I
can also select up to 20 different file formats. Here, I'm selecting a SolidWorks
file. In addition to STL and SolidWorks we an import file formats like CATIA,
Pro/engineer Creo, Inventor, Fusion 360 NX, Solid Edge, Step, Parasolids and
again it's a list of up to 20 different file formats. Here we can see the model
that I've just specified, I can double click here on the build phonic and I can
see the size of the model relative to the bill want to make sure that it is
what I expect to see. I'll go ahead to save and continue' and that will
bring us to the main interaction page within Fabricate™ which is called the 'Fab
instruction page'. This is where I tell the system "this is
what I want the end result of the process to be for this particular model".
Later on I'll be able to take this model or and its Fab instruction and combine
it with the fab instructions of other models to queue up larger jobs, but for
now the focus is on this particular part. This is where I'll specify things like;
what is the material that should be used for this particular part?
What should the final scale of this model be during the course of our
process? The models will actually shrink and we automatically compensate for that
behind the scenes for the user, so they never ever have to concern themselves
with those things or you're specifying here is what the final size of the part
should be when everything is all said and done. Now, in other pre-processing
software you basically go in and you bring up the user interface to manually
specify everything and anything about the print process from the layer
thickness, the rate of extrusion, the velocity of the head, and so on to
achieve a certain result. We give you access to those same parameters but
frankly the workflow that we've created in Fabricate™ is a lot cleaner and
simpler. And let me explain. So in 3D printing I can take a model and I can
orient it any number of different ways which includes the standard 6 orthogonal
orientations. So I can just rotate it around I can printed on its
back, its bottom, its top, its side and each one of these orientations has its
pros and cons. In addition to that to simplify things we've given the user to
pre-configured parameter files; standard and fine. Standard uses a layer thickness
of 220 microns. Fine currently gives it a layer thickness of 150 microns. now an
experienced user of 3d printing would know given the geometry of the part what
orientation do I want and what particular parameter file should I use
to optimize this in a particular way. But to make things simpler for our
customers what we've actually done is we've taken advantage of all the
processing power that's available on the cloud and so we've taken this part and
ahead of time we've calculated what is the toolpath look like? How much material
will be consumed? How much time would take to print? What does the debind cycle
look like and it's time? What about the centering cycle and a total amount of
time that will be required for that? But the thing is, we didn't calculate it once
we actually calculated it 12 times. We took the six orientations, times these
two different parameter files for 12 different ways this part can be produced
and then what we've done is we've actually laid out those 12 different
variations on these scales where over on the left hand side is good on the right
hand side is bad so when I look at the scale for time I could see the shortest
time on the left the longest time on the right. For overall surface quality I
can see the best surface quality on the left the worst surface quality on
the right, and same thing for material usage right the least and the max. One
thing to note here in this video is these times are currently off and we're
refining these numbers right now as we speak so it won't take this long to
print your models but the point of this is we have a relative comparison between
those twelve different ways that this model can be produced and we can see
exactly how they relate to one another. So when I take in this part in the
current Z orientation using the standard parameter file. this is how it relates to
others other ways of printing this part and you can see from a surface quality
and a material consumption standpoint, not so good. So now if I change the
orientation look at how the sliders change to represent again how this
orientation gets better or worse than in this case quality and material
consumption get better. We call this our real time trade-off analysis. So again if
I take this model let's actually turn it upside down and see what this does.
Now most people would never print apart in this particular orientation and if we
look from material consumption standpoint we can see that
yes this is the worst way to print the part from material consumption
standpoint and if I want to look at how much support material is generated, I can
come down here to this slider and drag it from part display to slider display, to
sports display, and anything in between depending on what I want to look at.
Actually while I'm here looking at the supports what you see in dark purple is
our special interface layer. This is the ceramic material that's extrude that
separates the support from the part and it makes it really easy after the parts
are centered to remove the part from the support material, rather than having to
grind it away. Now it goes one step further though now what happens in
situations where the geometry the part and the geometry of the supports
interlock with one another, which is actually what we have here, you can see
in my part I have these holes on the side. And now when I show the
support we see the supports fill those voids and actually create a T-shape
right, with these basically triangular pins on the side that lock
the part in place. Now, so now we have a situation where given that we would not
be able to pull the part off of the supports even with the interface layer
of place but look at this. Actually zoom in where that pin meets the part you'll
actually see there's a very fine seam there. And that seam is something that we
have actually placed in the supports so that you can actually pull that pin out,
so you can actually eventually lift the part off of the rest of the supports. So
we actually look at the geometry of the part the geometry of the support and
then we strategically place vertical and horizontal seams the seams vertically
are these gaps like I just showed you a moment ago horizontal seams we just put
more interface layer in and this allows the support to again break apart
so without any tools you can actually separate the part from the support. Now
the reason I showed the supports was again this the real time trade-off
analysis is showing that's what we're actually consuming a lot of material and
we can see that when we look at the support and the part material. Well not
only does this interface tell us the good, again on the left, and the bad over
on the right but it's also an opportunity for me to tell the system
how do I want to optimize this part? In this particular case maybe I want to
print it and I just want to do it in such a way that I minimize the amount of
material that's used so I'll bring it to the happy end of the scale and let go
and now I can see the part is oriented on end which allows the system to
construct a smaller raft, and it uses significantly less support material but
I can also see how other axis get better or worse such as a fabrication time has
actually grown as a result of that change. Or I might want to say what's the
best way to optimize this part for overall surface quality and well if you
look it's laid the part down so all these circular features can be printed
or rendered as circles versus stacked rectangles so it allows us you know in
these particular geometries to avoid that stair stepping. In fact, we call that
terracing so we've come up with a way to measure it quantify it and then compare
different ways of printing models. And so again the idea is you don't have to pick
the particular orientation you don't have to specify the particular
parameters you just tell the system how you want to optimize the model and then
it shows you the best way to do it. In addition to that not only can you orient
the part based on these standard orientations but you can also do a
custom orientation as well. If I select the model I'll highlight it and that
puts me in the custom orientation interface now I have the ability to
manually rotate the model or orient it based on face so now I can move my mouse
around on the screen and you can see the arrow display that in this case let's
point that up so wherever I select it's gonna reorient the model so the
arrow points up okay to give me that particular result and these options are
not exclusive or mutually exclusive you have the ability to orient by face and
then I could rotate as well so let's rotate it say 45 degrees in the XY plane.
Okay so you got a great way to get exactly what you want when you print the
model. And if you'd like, you have the opportunity to look at the tool path
here on the Fab instruction page. So I'll select on an option you'll see the
legend over here on the right hand side so each portion of the tool path has its
own color and you can turn those items on and off so I can grab this and I can
look and up to any particular layer that I'd like in the process. And again I can
come here and turn things on and off as I look at the display of the part. Now
like I mentioned before the Fab instruction page, its purpose is to allow
the user to specify what I want the end result of this particular part to be now
that I've specified what the material is what the size is and how I want it
optimized then I can go ahead and say continue and what the system will now do
is it'll generate the instructions for the three steps in the process it'll
generate the tool path and the instructions for printing the debind
instructions and the sintering instructions for the part and then it
takes me to the first step in the process which is setting up the job for
the part on the printer. So you see placed on the platform one thing to note
is the part has actually been located on the backside of the platform and that's
because the platform is cantilevered or supported from the back so we
automatically nest the parts that you specify in such a way that the center of
gravity of the nest is as close to the back as possible. But now I have the
ability to not only print this part but I can select other parts by
selecting them here on the right-hand rail to add them to the nest I can
change the quantity of the part one thing you should notice here is it'll
also tell me the maximum number of this part that I can have in the nest if I
keep all the other components the same so right now I can fit up to three
additional hinges in this particular nest or up to five additional and that's
or five additional yolks to this nest as well that's just a handy way to see what
the capacity is that you have available on the system. So here is where you will
actually select the particular printer that you want to send the device to when
this is fully functional will actually be able to see the material that's
loaded and the quantity as well and what the status of the printer is whether
it's active or idle. And when I'm satisfied I can go ahead and say sent to
printer to actually send this particular job to the queue for that device. Another
thing I'd like to show you just very quickly about the interaction that we've
designed for our customers if I go ahead and let's grab another part let's do the
belt so this happens to be an STL file that we're reading in. Okay we'll go
ahead open that up in the fab instruction page and like I mentioned
before we're calculating those twelve combinations of orientation and
parameter files for you and it's actually showing you here that they're
in the process of being calculated in parallel but if you know exactly what
orientation like I want to print this part when the Y orientation with the
fine parameters, you can go ahead and select those without waiting for the
calculation to be done and then once that particular one is complete the
continue button will become available and then you can just move forward. So
you don't have to wait. Another thing I want to point out is view manipulation
or now Gatien using the mouse key in the
software. Okay when I double-click on any open space with within the screen I do a
zoom to fit of the everything in the current view if I do a double click on a
particular item, here I'm gonna double click on the platform it'll zoom in on
that or I can double click on the model and it'll zoom in on that. When I rotate
and zoom in wherever you put the mouse on the model it's actually going to be
the center of focus. So let's say I want to rotate around this particular hole
here on the top of the model I place the model there and begin the rotation when
I do that location is moved to the center of the screen and rotation then
pivots around that location if I want to look at this particular hole over here
same sort of thing move the mouse over here and start the rotation and it
centers that on that portion of the screen. Same thing with the zoom if I
want to zoom in on this all over here move the mouse to that location and then
start zooming in. Okay so it's a nice convenient way to kind of view the model
without a lot of effort and a lot of thinking because after a while users
will get accustomed to this notion just move the mouse to the area that I want
to focus on and then begin the rotation or the zoom. Alright that is
an overview of the Fabricate™ software and how it works in terms of
pre-processing models and creating instructions that are sent to your
printer debinder and furnace. Thanks so much for the time.